It’s Not What You Think

“Your mom has Alzheimers”. The sound of my dad’s voice, in a low, almost hushed tone, reverberted loudly in my mind. I will never forget his voice or the somber look on his face. I immediately thought of what I knew of Alzheimers: memory loss and eventually, death. And that was all.

My mom was adopted at birth. She never knew her biological father or mother. The only information she has been given was from some of her biological aunts and uncles, whom she found later on in adulthood. We know her biological mom died before she was forty years old. We do not know why. My mom’s adopted mother, her true mother, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in the 1983. I was in the ninth grade and until then, I had never heard of Alzheimer’s Disease. I remember visiting my grandma and she did not know who we were. My grandpa and my mom arranged for her to go to a dementia care unit, because it became too much for my grandpa to care for her. I only visited her there one time. She cried saying the nurses were trying to starve her to death. She had just finished eating dinner not ten minutes before and simply did not remember. She yelled at my mom for taking her away from her home and told us to get out. It scared me. I was not allowed to visit her again. Not long after, my grandma passed away. All those memories came flooding back with the softly spoken words from my dad. “Your mom has Alzheimers”. No, not my mom. This can’t be.

The signs were there: forgetting names, dates and some confusion. But we all do that right? How many times have I walked into a room only to forget what I went in there for, or misplaced my keys? But, I knew this was different. My mom had to retire from her job as an Executive Secretary at a bank, where she had worked for over 30 years. She simply could no longer perform the job duties that until recently had been second nature to her.

Based upon my limited knowledge of Alzheimer’s, I thought my mom’s prognosis was: memory loss that gets worse over a short time and then sadly, death. That had been my experience with my grandma, not knowing what truths were hidden from me. Those truths are so much more. I was not prepared.